SEO, Content Marketing, and Social Media: The Best of February 2014

If you’ve spent any amount of time in the SEO industry, you’ve probably become desensitized to Matt Cutts’ warnings and announcements, as well as the Google algorithm changes. Let’s be honest though. If you’re doing things the right way, none of this should effect your strategy and continued success. Google has constantly evolved to penalize those in the SEO industry that break the rules, and this will not change. As always, it is important to have a multifaceted strategy that includes SEO, social media, and content marketing. In that spirit, we gathered some of the best articles on these subjects from February. Enjoy, and if you’re looking for the same great content the rest of the month, don’t forget to check in with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

SEO

More than several years ago now, some of my closer colleagues will remember SEOgadget had been subjected to a directory submission blast. Two, in fact. The domain had been submitted to around 2,000 adult website directories (sigh), and a batch submission to Directory Maximiser.

In the Local SEO biz, we spend a lot of time fixing duplicate business listings. Duplicate records of your business appearing throughout the Local Search ecosystem can cause a variety of issues like messing with your Google Local rankings, causing you to lose business, and may even make you feel like you’re experiencing a zombie apocalypse.

Social proofing your business is one of the best ways to maintain a solid digital market positioning in your choice of industry. In constantly changing consumer behaviour, it is crucial for internet marketers to establish a good marketing stand where consumer behaviour becomes more predictable.

Just practicing my Upworthy titles. Did it make you click? Now that you’re here, we’ll look at what I’m talking about in a moment. But first let’s set the scene as to why and when you’d want to use keyword planner in such unorthodox manners…

SearchEngineWatch.com recently published a great article on how to “Crush Content Marketing in 2014.” The tips are spot-on and all but guaranteed to work. But they’re not user-friendly. In fact, what they say about content marketing is downright scary.

You really don’t need me to tell you that there’s a LEGO movie out right now. It’s impossible to ignore. Heck, even as I write this there’s a Culture Show special on BBC2 right now about how LEGO has influenced architecture.

Social Media

At first glance, social media is only a way for people to post photos, communicate with friends and family, complain about the weather and discuss current events. On the surface it may not seem to have much value beyond that.

Social media is a crowded place. You need every competitive advantage possible to stand out. Luckily, giving your social media posts a little something extra doesn’t have to mean to a lot of extra work for you.

Teens today don’t have it as tough as we did: Answering machines sometimes didn’t record your message. You had to settle for a celebrity’s autograph because you forgot your camera. Times were hard; yet we still found ways to communicate.